With this early sound film from 1931, Warner Bros. unleashed Hollywood's first gangster movie, and Edward G. Robinson established its most enduring archetype. Robinson plays the pugnacious Caesar Enrico Bandello, a small-time hoodlum with few friends, few attachments, and little sense of underworld diplomacy, who nevertheless rises to the top of the criminal rackets. A featurette on the making of the film and commentary by historian Richard B. Jewell reveal that Robinson, a genteel art collector who disdained firearms, had to have his eyelids taped to keep from blinking whenever a gun was fired.